


How To Destroy Angels

by ClementineStarling



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: ALL the issues, Character Study, Child Abandonment, Child Abuse, Childhood Sexual Abuse, Daddy Issues, Domestic Violence, Drug Use, F/M, Homophobia, M/M, Misogyny, Mommy Issues, Prostitution, Psychological Trauma, Rape/Non-con Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 08:57:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19849819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClementineStarling/pseuds/ClementineStarling
Summary: Sometimes he wonders if he even has a heart, not just a hole his in chest, stuffed with scar tissue and anger. Thinks it'sherfault as much as Neil's that he's turned out a bit of a bastard, that if she hadn't abandoned him, he would have become a better person or something.(pretty much pre-S3)





	How To Destroy Angels

**Author's Note:**

> Titel borrowed from the [eponymous Coil song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7xZYX7a6JE) | Sort of a companion piece to [(Life's the same) it's all inside you](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19730485)
> 
> Not nice. Not shippy. Not porn. You've been warned. 
> 
> (I hope I tagged for everything. If I missed anything, pls tell me.)

He doesn't think of her much, his mother. Never did, once the pain had stopped. He took a while to heal up, every wound needs time to scab and scar over, but that's ancient history now, and he's got better things to do than mourn the fact both his parents are selfish assholes. One thing he does remember though. When he was little he had this happy place he visited every night before sleep: a sunny day at the beach, his board, the perfect wave, the smell of the ocean in his nose, his mom cheering him on. He stopped going there when she left, it hurt too much, and over the years the memory had faded like an old photograph tucked away in a drawer, almost forgotten. Sometimes he takes it out, looks at it. A day like a dream, frozen in a past that's dead and gone. Like his mother. 

Mom. The word has a strange ring to it. Alien. It tastes of abandonment, of despair. It's not how he relates to women. 

Women want him, they crave him, they're crazy about him. That's the whole deal. Women, that's fluttering eye lashes and too short skirts, long legs, lush lips, silky hair, soft skin, gentle hands, thighs opening for him. Women make him feel good, that's what they're for. They moan when he cups their tits in his palms; they sigh when he tastes their mouth, plunges his tongue in deep; they gasp when he pushes his fingers inside of them, then his cock. It's as simple as that. 

Even Susan is no different. He's seen her stare at him. He'd fuck her, too, if he thought he'd get away with it. Never mind she's old enough to be his mother, older than his own mother perhaps, Billy doesn't discriminate. All he cares about is pretty or not pretty. And Susan is pretty enough. He'd do her in a heartbeat, and he's damn sure she'd let him, but she is Neil's and he knows better than to fuck with his father's property. Not yet. Not until he's older. Just a little bit. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty. He won't have to wait forever.

It's a tight rope dance with his father. Billy can't help but provoke him, it's in his blood, but he tries to stick to small things for now: long hair and an ear ring, for example, or being late for dinner. Those little acts of rebellion are causing more than enough heat. Neil Hargrove isn't a kind man, and you can accuse him of many things, but indulgence is certainly not one of his flaws. Which probably isn't so bad. Doesn't give you illusions about what kind of place the world is.

Billy is thankful for that, after a fashion.

His father taught him everything he knows. His father taught him nothing. Billy can't quite decide which is true, both statements seem to have a point. It doesn't feel as though he learned anything from Neil that really matters, apart from maybe the one thing: You can't be weak. The weak are always preyed upon by the strong, so in the grand scheme of things, you have to see to it you get out on top.

_

There's an opposite to bright, happy days at the beach – it's night time, rain thrumming against the window panes, and he's in bed, blanket pulled up to the tip of his nose, listening to the voices from the living room, the crescendo of another argument unfolding. Inevitably, they start yelling. Then the sound of breaking china. He knows what will come next. He puts his hands over his ears so he doesn't have to hear it at least. A weight presses down on his chest, a lump is swelling in his throat, he can't breathe. 

He should get up. He should run to protect her. Try to stop him from hurting her. But he knows he won't stand a chance. He'd only make things worse for her. For them both. This is not the first time after all. He's tried to help her before. “Stop it,” he begged. “Please stop! Don't hurt her!” but all he achieved was to get himself a bloody nose, too, and his mom in hysterics. 

“Don't ever do that again,” she told him afterwards. “I don't want you to get hurt.”

As if that were her decision. As if she could protect him anymore than he her.

He still hurts when his dad beats her; it's a different sort of pain though. It lives inside him, dark and mute and vicious, like a monster, and when he falls asleep, it's lurking in his dreams, just out of sight, right there in the corner of his eyes, where the tears prickle.

_

Billy knows Mom's friend Wendy and it's not Wendy's car she's getting out of that one time in the school parking lot, and it's definitely not Wendy behind the steering wheel but some man Billy has never seen before. Mom looks around to make sure no one's watching before she walks over to her own car. She arrives there before Billy, soon enough, perhaps, she thinks he hasn't noticed anything because she pretends it's business as usual. 

“How was school?” 

Her smile is radiant but for the first time in his life, Billy wonders if she's lying to him. He shrugs, slings his bag in the back seat. “Okay.” 

He considers letting it slide, the mystery of the man and his car and why Mom was meeting up with him, but curiosity gets the better of him. 

“Who was that?” he asks when she turns the key in the ignition. 

Her eyes are fixed on the street. There's a pause before she answers. Hesitation. “Only a friend.” 

He knows how she is when she doesn't want to discuss an issue with him, and this is clearly one of those cases, so he assumes it's the end of their conversation, but then an odd expression flickers over her face. 

“Don't tell your father, okay?” He can't overhear the slight tinge of panic. He should be too small to notice but youth doesn't protect you from knowledge.

He nods. Of course he won't. Not now that he _knows_ she's lying to Neil. He's not a rat.

_

It's one of those mornings again when her lip is swollen and she's wearing her sun glasses indoors. Her hands tremble when she shakes the pills from the bottle, pops them in her mouth. 

“I'll drive you to school,” she says, unnecessarily, picking up the keys. It's what she usually does. It's as much of a routine as her attempts of hiding her bruises. It's also not extraordinary she's a bit teary when she drops him off. “Take care, Billy, won't you?”

“Sure, Mom.” He grabs his bag and slips from the car. He's late, he's gotta hurry.

“Promise?” she calls after him.

He doesn't even look back. It's only much later that he realizes she was saying goodbye. 

_

The weight of the receiver in his hand, his ear hot and sticky against the plastic when he pleads with her. He would not have thought both his parents are equally heartless. Looks like it runs in the family, he will think, later, when someone accuses him of callousness, too. He's aware he's how he is, in part because of her, because she left him.

But there's more to it than that.

_

Neil says it's his mother's fault Billy's got to learn everything the hard way, she was too soft on him, forgot to teach him the basics. Simple rules such as: Boys don't play with girls. And under no circumstances do they play with dolls. Billy should have known that, even without being told. It was careless of him to let himself get caught. His cheek is bruised for a week after his Neil's done with him but what's worse is the memory of Cheryl and Deb's reaction, their faces when Neil grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and dragged him off, cursing. 

“No son of mine's gonna play with dolls. What the fuck are you, Billy, a fucking fag?”  
_

He isn't a fag, Billy thinks. 

He never really doubts that, despite some things that have happened later. Like, that thing with the coach after baseball practice. 

Billy, for some reason, can never get it quite right. He just doesn't get how to hit the ball with the damn bat, no matter how hard he tries. Maybe he's simply hopeless, talentless, maybe it's because he's under such pressure to perform (his dad really wants him to succeed). But he's lucky he's got a great coach, who is patient with him, and kind, and eager to teach. Mr J always has a word of encouragement for him. He's full of affection for him, the kind of affection Billy doesn't get from his father: He pats him on his head, ruffles his hair. Praises him for every small improvement. Praises him for sheer luck. Just praises him, even if there's little cause. And Billy, hungry as he is, laps it all up.

He hadn't realized how starved he is for approval. 

It doesn't even bother him that much that Mr J is more touchy than other people, that he gets more touchy over time. 

“Wanna come in and talk about it?” he asks, reaching out for his shoulder when Billy sports another visible bruise, holding the door of his office open for him. “I have candy, if you like...”

He pulls him tight against his side, which is weird, even as far as hugs go, but Billy gets a Snickers bar for bearing with it, so it's definitely worth the bother.

Weeks pass and he finds himself more and more often alone with Mr J. 

“Can you help me with this after practice, Billy?” he asks, or: “Do you have a few minutes to spare?” or “Can you stay for a bit after training, I wanna show you something?” 

It makes Billy feel special. That an adult wants to spend time with him, that he always has a treat for him, small gifts, attention, an open ear. 

“I'm really fond of you, Billy,” Mr J tells him. It makes Billy grin from ear to ear. So he isn't awful, and he isn't useless, like his father tells him. Not a fucking pussy.

“Has anyone ever told you how pretty you are?” Mr J says one day. They're in the locker room, alone. It is late. Everyone else has left. The air is stale with old sweat and the smell of sneakers but that doesn't keep Billy from rummaging through the bag of M&Ms Mr J just gave him and throwing handfuls into his mouth. 

He shakes his head. It's a lie. His mom told him he was pretty. And his father, too, even if much less appreciatively. Boys aren't supposed to be pretty. Boys are supposed to be strong and tough and fast. So that's what Billy usually aims for.

Mr J strokes his cheek, but Billy doesn't pay much attention. Mr J sometimes gets weird like that, he's gotten used to it. But this time he does something he's never done before. He gently takes Billy's right hand and holds it for a moment and says “I really like you a lot, Billy” and “Can I ask you for a small favour?” 

“Sure,” Billy mumbles, mouth full chocolate and peanut.

His hand ends up pressed to Mr J's crotch. A hard shape underneath the fabric, warm, almost hot. Something squirms in Billy's stomach. It's not a good squirm. A twist of dread. Fear. Billy's familiar with the feeling and its paralysing effect. He wants to jump to his feet and run, but instead he remains seated, unable to move, disgust roiling in his gut.

Mr J moves his hand along the hardness, up and down, his own, larger hand covering Billy's smaller one so he can't pull away. His breathing is unnaturally loud in Billy's ears. 

“What a pretty little thing you are,” Mr J groans. Billy closes his eyes. It's the first time in years he goes back to his happy place, a sunny day at the beach, the perfect wave, the smell of the ocean in his nose.

He ditches baseball training soon after that, and starts playing basketball instead. He's better at it too. Looks like he wasn't made for baseball in the first place. But there's something else he's learned from the incident, a valuable lesson: Affection always comes at a price.

_

He only truly grasps what a faggot is some time later. It takes a bit of life experience, of context, to understand the full weight of the slur, but once he's got it, it makes him wonder. Perhaps Neil is right to call him that? He thinks about all the times he felt odd and finds a great many occasions, most notably of course, the moments with Mr J. But he didn't want that, so he can't be blamed, can he?

Still, the memory is like a stain that won't come off. Not even after he's kissed Laurie behind the gym like they do it in the movies (sloppy and slick and with plenty of tongue), or after he persuaded Rhonda to allow him to touch her boobs, not only through her shirt but for real, skin on skin. 

Then Gina, who's a year older and more experienced, touches him between the legs and it's electrifying. It's bad and it's good at the same time. On top of the pleasure, there's a sort of victory, and it's addictive. It helps to numb the pain. 

After that, things get better.

One evening at Gina's, when he's about to sneak out through the back door, he runs into her mom sitting at the kitchen table, wine glass in hand. He braces for a lecture, or any kind of scene (after all, his dick is still wet from fucking her daughter) but it doesn't come. Instead she throws him a glance that's no less wanton than her daughter's. She stares at him over the rim of her glass as if he wants to eat him and a rush of power runs through him, golden and warm as sunlight and headier than any booze he's ever got his hands on.

“Good evening, Mrs Russo,” he says, with more than the usual cockiness and the way she purrs his name in response makes his dick twitch. From that moment on, he'll be confident he can have anyone he wants.

_

The night Neil brought Susan home for the first time, he saw them, on the living room sofa. It was late (or early) and unfamiliar noises had woken him up. He went to have a look, and there they were, his father between the legs of a strange woman, kissing her like he wanted to devour her. She moaned and whimpered, her hands digging into his ass as he rutted against her. It was an odd sight. Billy couldn't tear his eyes away from them until his dad pushed himself off the woman and got up on his knees, fingers fumbling with his belt bucket, impatient. This at last, was familiar. Billy had seen his father remove his belt a hundred times, and he knew exactly what came after. But why would he want to hit her? Billy thought, drowsily, still half asleep. What had that woman done to annoy him? Just a moment ago, he had appeared happy enough. 

He studied her with a dull sense of pity in his belly. She looked so soft, so vulnerable, her hair a cascade of flaming red that fell from the armrest to the floor. But then, she wasn't his mother, so perhaps that was justification enough. Perhaps she deserved to suffer...

_

Her daughter has the same red hair and the same soft skin. Maxine. She's introduced to him as his new sister, someone to look out for. But how can he, when he knows only too well what's in store for little girls like her? 

He's gotta see to it that she toughens up quick. It's all he can do for her.

_

Billy Hargrove is truly his father's son – short-tempered, prone to violence. A fighter, as his dad calls it. Sometimes Neil seems pleased by that, sometimes he isn't. It's so hard to predict. Impossible even. Most of the time, Billy feels like walking on egg shells. The same deed can earn him a reward one day and punishment the next. As he gets older he pretends he doesn't care anymore, but it's a lie. Some childish part of him still wants to make Neil proud.

Sometimes he wonders if it's true what Freud said about sons wanting to kill their fathers.

_

He doesn't get to fuck Gina's mom in the end; perhaps she deems it too much of a risk. After all, he's far from being legal yet, and the thing with Gina doesn't end on the best of notes, so hooking up could attract some unwanted attention. It's a shame 'cause she's really hot, but Billy isn't heart-broken about it either. Sometimes he wonders if he even has a heart, not just a hole in his chest, stuffed with scar tissue and anger. Thinks it's _her_ fault as much as Neil's that he's turned out a bit of a bastard, that if she hadn't abandoned him, he would have become a better person or something. If she hadn't left he'd stick with girls his own age and be content with the bubble gum taste of their mouths and some fumbling in the back seat of his car. But as things are, he doesn't and he isn't.

He starts small, picks up college girls on the beach but they're hardly any better than high schoolers: a lot of work, little reward. They tend to be prudish and uptight and not exactly grateful for what he can do for them. Besides, they're more suspicious than older women, more likely to spot a gap in his cover story. _How old are you again? What school are you going to?_ Those kind of questions.

Women in their thirties don't care about what school he's in, or where he lives, or what his parents do for a living. And if they pretend they do, they'll swallow the cheapest lies because they want to believe him. What they care about is their mutually beneficial arrangement. And Billy wouldn't dream of complaining. They open up a whole new world for him. They take him out to dinner, to clubs, to the movies and hotel rooms. To a lot of places, he'd never get access to on his own. He's only sixteen, even if he looks older. 

In the beginning he's kind of nervous about that, but turns out no one ever bothers to ask about his age. Not where they're going, anyway.

And dating older women pays off, not just experience-wise. A lot of them tend to slip him a larger bill every once in a while. “Take it,” they say with a fond smile and a wink as he stages his little show of fake refusal. “Buy yourself something nice.”

They take him shopping too, apparently delighted by his joy about all sorts of gifts: clothes, shoes, a new surfboard, a hair-cut, piles of records, silver jewellery.

Sometimes they want to take pictures of him, but he always makes them pay extra for that. He's in fact getting quite good at wangling money out of them. Good enough he has to invent jobs he's supposedly working to explain at home how all these new things have come into his possession, never mind the amount of cash he's got at his disposal.

Still, there's still a residue of suspicion. “You're not sucking cock for money, you little slut, are you?” Neil throws in his face during one of his outbursts, and there it is again, the poisonous little word, flashing up in Billy's mind. _Faggot._

But what if?

He tells himself it's out of defiance that he takes up a guy on his offer when the next chance presents itself. He's at some fancy party at a beach house, he's had a few nosefuls of blow, which probably made him reckless, some rich jerk hits on him and on a whim he agrees. The guy's apparently famous, some director or movie producer, who knows, who cares? He isn't bad looking either, quite handsome in fact, more than double Billy's age, but Billy doesn't give a fuck about that.

The guy's more nervous than Billy when he gets his cock out. Takes him a while to get hard. It's not Billy's fault, he might be new at this but he's undoubtedly good at it too. Turns out sucking cock really isn't that difficult, unless a guy wants to shove it all the way in and choke you on it, and fortunately, that's not this guy's style. He is satisfied with what Billy's prepared to give him, spit and enthusiasm and quite a bit of help from his hand. He strokes him while he sucks him off, his fingers nice and tight around his shaft and his mouth wet and eager. Once the guy is fully hard it doesn't take long. He comes in record time. He shots his load without much of a warning, straight into Billy's mouth and Billy, somewhat surprised, swallows. 

He doesn't think that was the deal but it wasn't so bad either, he decides. Plus, the reward is quite handsome. 

Perhaps he's lucky they move to Indiana before he can go pro.

_

After Cali, Hawkins is like purgatory: mind-numbingly boring. A literal shit-hole. The fucking cows are prettier than the girls. High school feels like being transferred back to kindergarten. The seniors are a fucking joke. They're still children. The big shot is some rich kid with ridiculous hair who's hopeless at basketball and screwing a prissy Miss Know-it-all. What a loser! 

Billy spends pretty much all of his first days imagining how he'd make that loser suck his cock, at least that's something he can picture him being good at. Plus, it would put the silly amount of hair to some use.

As for the girls, there really isn't anyone appealing so far. Carol makes a pass at him right away, apparently eager to climb up the social ladder via boyfriend-upgrade, but fucking her would mean alienating Tommy, and Billy will need some allies if he wants to get through his last year without dying of boredom. (He hates the fact that such alliances are actual things he has to consider now, but the town is tiny and there are still almost seven months of school ahead, so what is he going to do?) 

Ruling Carol out leaves him with the likes of Tina and Vicki. Which is okay, he thinks. They're pretty enough and maybe he can persuade them to a threesome, that would add some spice to the whole affair. And then there's prissy Miss Know-it-all's mom, who's smoking hot, so that's a glimmer of hope.

There's always a silver lining, you only have to go looking for it. And Billy has become quite accomplished at that. 

Max, on the other hand, doesn't even have to make an effort. She has little trouble fitting in. A couple of days in, she's been adopted by a group of oddballs, or the other way around. Doesn't matter. She seems happy enough.

It's something he's envied her for all along: She's got a gift for falling on her feet. He gave her a hard time when they moved in together, when she became his responsibility, but he feels deep down she knows it made her resilient. A fighter like him. A survivor. He may have overdone it a little, here and there, it might even, in part, be his fault they had to move, if he's being honest. He pushed her too much and too far, and she had grown reckless. Too tough for her own good.

No wonder, really, their parent pulled the ripcord and relocated to this safe sleepy backwater before she turned out like him. (No one cares about him or what he becomes, never has, not really, but that's old news and Billy's come to terms with it. He doesn't need anyone to protect him. He doesn't need pity either.) 

Even if he'd never admit it, Billy is proud of his little sister, just a tiny bit, but still...

_

There's something strange about Hawkins, underneath all the sleepiness and boredom, well, strange apart from disappearing kids and chemical leaks, mysterious deaths and people going batshit crazy. Strange more as in bringing out a new side in Billy. Perhaps it's because the town's so small and you run into the same people every day, perhaps it's because he can't spend all his free time at the beach seducing women, but somehow Hawkins gets to him. It calms him down.

He goes to school like a good boy, drops off Max and picks up her as he's supposed to, and he hardly ever fights with Neil. On the weekends he gets drunk at the same sort of underwhelming house parties like everyone else, and sometimes he smokes weed behind the gym. He fucks girls his own age and miraculously he gets none of them pregnant. Perhaps he even secretly fools around with a guy with ridiculous hair on occasion, or flirts with a hot mom or jerks off a lot thinking of one hot mom in particular, but overall he's behaving himself. By his standards that is.

Once school's out, he gets himself a summer job at the pool. An actual honest job, he can hardly believe it himself, and maybe that's the last straw because somehow he starts to see the world with different eyes, sometimes at least. One day, there's this woman at the pool, blonde, pretty, and some trusty little cog in his mind creaks to life, it is turning while that unknown woman leans down to her son, ice cream in hand, and when that kid beams up at her, something slots into place.

He's not crying, up on his life guard chair. He's not. After all, he's not a child anymore and what he thinks of is as real as an old photo, tucked away in a drawer. A dream of a day, a faded memory.

It takes him a couple of minutes to dig himself out of this pile of sentimental bullshit again. 

He'll have to do something about it, he decides. Perhaps getting back into the game will help.

Beneath him, in the pool, Nancy's mom is swimming laps, or rather: showcasing her tits. 

Perfect, Billy thinks. Just what he needs right now.

~


End file.
